Cold Case from the ’80s Solved After Imprisoned Serial Killer Admits to It

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Police in Florida announced on Sunday that they cracked the case of a 44-year-old unsolved murder.

The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office posted a statement on its Facebook page that the investigation into the four-decade-old murder of Carol Ann Barrett has come to end — two years after serial killer Billy Mansfield Jr. admitted to the slaying.

Mansfield is currently serving five concurrent life sentences for murder in a California prison. Because of this, the Florida State Attorney’s Office announced that it will not prosecute Mansfield for Barrett’s murder.

Barrett, 18, was abducted from a hotel room in Daytona Beach, Florida, at approximately 2 a.m. on March 23, 1980. She was visiting the state from her hometown of Zanesville, Ohio, to enjoy spring break with a group of high school friends.

Barrett’s body was discovered on March 24, 1980, in a ditch along Interstate 95 in Jacksonville, nearly 100 miles from where she was taken An autopsy confirmed that Barrett’s death was a homicide.

According to the sheriff’s office, the trail for Barrett’s killer went cold until 2017, when the case was re-opened based on a review of all available evidence by the Jacksonville-based nonprofit Project: Cold Case, an organization dedicated to finding the answers to unsolved murders.

Mansfield, who was 24 at time time Barrett was abducted and killed, is now in his late 60s. He was listed as a person of interest by investigators in 2020.  In September 2022, he confessed to Barrett’s kidnap and murder.

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